


a few months after

by chameleonchanging



Series: 100 lbs flour and 300 eggs [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, learning to cook is kind of a pain, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-05 11:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12189279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonchanging/pseuds/chameleonchanging
Summary: Newt gets a phone call. Percival gets a bad day.





	1. Chapter 1

“I will pay you five hundred dollars to buy and drop off a hundred packages of unsalted butter at my place,” says Percival when Newt picks up the phone. 

“Um,” says Newt, because he’d TAed an undergraduate night lab yesterday and then stayed up to get in another five pages on his thesis and was sleeping in to make up for it. He runs a hand through his hair, turns over, and fumbles around for his alarm clock. The hands claim it’s later than it could possibly be. “Wait - is it really past noon?”

“It really is,” says Percival, sounding a little bit like he was carrying an elephant on his back whilst walking up the fire escape of a skyscraper. Newt frowns and sits up in bed. “Please, Newt, I’m all out, and I have something in the oven.”

“I thought you were supposed to be resting,” he says. Percival had been banned from the office on account of having the flu. He has an edge to his voice that makes Newt suspicious.

“I  _am_  resting, I just need something to do,” says Percival. In the background, Newt can hear the sound of a stand mixer running at maximum speed. There’s a sharp  _crack_ , like an egg breaking, and Percival curses under his breath. “I don’t know why I keep trying that with one hand when the yolks break every single time. I’m working on macarons, but I’m out of cream and anyway there’s a recipe for shortbread I really want to try -”

“Percival, are you okay?” Newt asks bluntly, his eyes narrowed, already throwing the covers off.

“… They started a building project the next lot over,” Percival says quietly. “The noise … ”

“Do you want to come stay with me?” Newt asks immediately. “As long as you need.”

“I’m  _sick_ , I don’t want to get you sick too,” says Percival.

“It’s been a week. You’re probably not contagious anymore,” says Newt. He pulls on the first pair of trousers he lays hands on and casts about for a shirt. The one he ends up wearing is one he not-so-accidentally stole from Percival. A little too large, but it’s not like his boyfriend is going to care.

“Newt,” Percival says helplessly after a long silence. “I’m not good company right now.”

“The offer’s open,” says Newt. “You don’t have to decide now. If - If that means you want to come over today or tomorrow or next week - Whenever. And whatever you decide, I’ll be over in an hour and a half with your butter, okay?”

“Yeah,” says Percival. “Okay. Drive safe?”

“Always,” says Newt, plucking his keys off the hanger. “See you in a bit.”


	2. Chapter 2

Percival has a refrigerator full of eggs, but no vegetables or fruit that hasn’t been earmarked for pastry or indeed any kind of food that isn’t flour-based. The lone container of take-out looks suspiciously alive when Newt checks. Percival offers a sheepish smile.

“I thought it was uni students who lived on ramen and takeout,” Newt teases, his arms around Percival’s neck even though Percival won’t let him have a kiss.

“Do you see any ramen?” Percival asks, and Newt snorts.

They drive back to Newt’s apartment, where Newt promptly buries Percival under a stack of blankets in bed to doze in relative quiet. The poor thing looks like he hasn’t slept well in days between the construction and his leaking faucet of a nose. He could do with a good meal, Newt thinks, and he’d be getting one, if not for one minor detail:

Newt is a uni student, and he lives on ramen and takeout. The last time he cooked anything, he was interning at the zoo. The diners were elephants and gorillas, and all he had to do was weigh the vegetables.

It couldn’t be that different cooking for people, right?

He settles on a casserole recipe. It looks simple enough on exam - just a few ingredients and a short list of instructions. How hard could it be?

… Very hard, as it turns out. There are yellow onions and white onions and red onions at the store, the potatoes look like red ping pong balls or brown bricks, and the beef comes in packages with different percentages of fat. He can’t for the life of him find cream of mushroom soup, whatever that is. For all that he works in a grocery store, he’s never put much thought into what people must do with all the different varieties of ingredient.

He gives up when he realizes salt is sold in four colours and three sizes of grain. The little packets from the Italian takeout place will have to do.

And then he has to actually do the cooking. His paring knife keeps slipping off the outside of the onion, and the layers fall apart every time he completes a cut. The potatoes are supposed to be sliced “thinly”, whatever that means. Once or twice, he narrowly misses removing a chunk from his fingers, and his eyes water endlessly until he thinks to put on his old lab goggles. The beef seems to have no particular middle ground between grey and tar, and there’s nearly no fat left in the pan to drain when he’s done - partially because there hadn’t been much to begin with, and partially because a good deal of it is in splatters on the cooktop. By the time Newt deems it done, there’s a lumpy layer of burnt crust, and bits of char get mixed in when he evacuates the pan.

He doesn’t own a baking dish, but Percival had made him a lovely cheesecake two weeks ago, and the tin it was in looks … close enough. It takes him five minutes to get the bottom to attach to the sides again, and thankfully it’s smooth sailing from there on. By the time everything is layered and in the oven, it’s been four hours and Percival is shuffling into the kitchen, still wrapped up with a blanket draped over his hair and tucked under his chin.

“It smells nice,” he says. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“I don’t,” Newt grumbles. There are brand new grease stains on his shirt, he’s pretty sure he smells like smoke, and he’s convinced that people who cook for fun are either insane or have some kind of magic. There’s a distinct possibility that he’s turned hamburger casserole into some kind of poison, he thinks, but Percival is picking at the leftover beef for a snack before Newt can stop him.

“It always looks easier than it actually is,” says Percival once he’s licked his fingers clean. “I can boil pasta and use a microwave. But maybe we can learn together?”

“Yeah,” says Newt. “But no more onions.”

“No onions,” Percival promises, and tactfully declines to point out the pair of goggles still strapped to Newt’s face.

* * *

 (“It’s not bad,” says Percival when the casserole is done and they’re eating on the couch. “Maybe it could use a bit of salt.”

“Shit,” says Newt. He knew he’d forgotten something.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for @duckiesinaline, who requested Newt baking for Graves.
> 
> I maintain there was an oven involved.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me at chameleonchanging.tumblr.com!


End file.
